Death on the road: can Mumbai shed its reputation as the’ car clang uppercase ‘?

One person is killed on Mumbais streets every 15 hours, the most difficult record in India. In an attempt to get a grasp on the chaos, the police are travelling digital recording fines electronically and setting CCTV. But will it stop people taking risks?

For 30 times after she was hit, Archana Pandya lay bleeding on a road in the busy Mumbai suburb of Goregaon. The 22 -year-old, who had just started a new job, was on her style dwelling from design when she was the victim of a hit-and-run. She died of her harms. There been a great deal of parties there, and it happened right opposite a police station, but no one came forward to help, says her friend Siddharth Pandya. Its not the roads; in India, its the people the hell is unsafe.

Pandya was one of 586 parties killed in road accidents in Mumbai in 2015, the equivalent of one death every 15 hours. Another 2,034 were seriously injured. The long response times of ambulances and disaster vehicles, read in conjunction with the unwillingness of spectators to facilitate street martyrs for fear of being detained by police and infirmaries, contribute to slow, pain fatalities for the thousands of beings every year. As a develop, Mumbai a city with approximately the same number of cars as London, but more than four times the number of street fatalities has become known as Indias crash capital. In 2015 there were 23,468 preserved congestion collisions: the highest in the country.

The citys city geography has helped breed a culture of negligent driving. Autoes zigzag through dense traffic jam, cutting corridors, overtaking from the left or zipping past red lights. Moves just knowing that fines and penalties are small and the chances of being caught are low-necked. Numerous scoff at the idea of wearing a seatbelt, while others casually take telephone calls and react textbook meanings as they navigate through the maze of cars.

These lax attitudes and dangerous driving wonts are spawned right from the driving test, which exists predominantly as a formality and is readily smoothed with a small bribe. Aditi Deopujari, a Mumbai resident who got her “drivers licence” in 2000, excuses: I was part of a driving academy that had a setup with the Motor Vehicles Department[ which issues licences ]. I presented up and had some rehearse rounds, but never had to sit the quiz or had any written measure regarding the rules. I just got sided the licence. Another occupant, who asked to remain anonymous, says: I literally had to drive five metres forward, and then five metres switch. That was it, I passed.

In an attempt to get a control on the chaos, Milind Bharambe, the head of the traffic police, is is president of a brand-new traffic control venture. The metropolitan has given all transaction policeman electronic designs to issue penalties, and has installed 4,000 CCTV cameras at intersections and signals. After five violations, we are going to start taking away licences, says Bharambe, whose are projected to digitise the traffic control plan takes clues from Prime Minister Narendra Modis digital India programme.

Watch, says police officer Prashant Prabhu, motioning towards a traffic light at a busy seam on the Mumbai marina. Across the road, the light-headed is about to go from dark-green to crimson. But just as he prophesies, autoes accelerate through, hoping to cross the signal as the yellow-bellied bursts. Some keep driving even after the light-colored croaks crimson.

Signal jumping is the biggest offence at this conjunction, he says. Everyone feels, the light-headed has just turned red, let me try to get through. Nothing wants to wait.

Prabhu jump-starts out and pennant down a motorbike that has now sped through the red light. He asks for the riders licence, then attracts out a calculator-like design, and fumbles trying to enter his password into the brand-new machine. Eventually he pierces in the licence multitude and asks for a charge card to pay the 200 rupee( 2.40) penalty.

Sometimes beings refuse to give their driving licence. OK , no problem, we just thrown their licence plateful multitude into the machine, and it will automatically send a fine to their telephone, he says. This road we have a record of all the traffic offences each driver has committed.

As well as digitising traffic offences, his scheme includes the more analogue mixture of new hydraulic towing vans, which can move 4x4s until now, SUVs that had been severely parked or involved in crashes had to be left on the road until their move moved them. He has also invested in digital signboards to warn about roadworks or collisions. This is the first time that something like this is being done in the country.

One floor below Bharambes office, Kishore Shinde, the traffic polices first is chairman of multimedia, is checking on pairs of uniformed police officers these are the officers tasked with using the new CCTV cameras to issue tickets and fines remotely. Shinde likewise administers a new complaints mechanism, which receives more than 300 words from disappointed motorists every day.

The biggest questions are traffic jams , no parking, accidents, and lubricant runs on the road, he says. Were making all the penalties cashless, so motorists can pay via debit card or mobile phone. We know there is corruption and bribery even in our own department, like there is from top to bottom everywhere in India. But formerly you pay by charge card, that means we have a record of the transaction. No police officer can just take a cut for themselves.